The present invention relates generally to guides for bars in bar rolling mills and more particularly to a mounting assembly for a guide box used to guide bars entering or leaving the rolls of a vertical rolling mill.
When a bar undergoes rolling in the rolls of a rolling mill, guide devices are usually provided to guide the bar along a straight linear path portion as the bar enters and leaves the rolls of the rolling mill. Such guide devices may be in the form of a guide box having adjustable rollers to guide the bar, and these guide boxes are generally positioned extremely close to the rolls of the rolling mill.
It is necessary to conduct periodic maintenance and repair on these guide boxes or to make periodic adjustments to the guiding rolls therein. Because of the proximity of the guide box to the rolls of the rolling mill, maintenance and repair were not always convenient, so that structure was provided for moving the guide box away from its operative position, adjacent the rolls of the rolling mill, to a displaced position where the guide box was more accessible and maintenance and repair were more convenient.
Typically, in such an installation, the guide box was mounted for sliding movement toward or away from the rolling mill rolls, but this type of installation had serious drawbacks. For example, the slides on which the guide box was mounted were exposed to water and mill scale from the rolling operation, and this interfered with the movement of the guide box along the slides. When the slides wee not kept clean of water or mill scale, it was difficult to accurately return the guide box to precisely the same position in which it was previously situated before being displaced.
Another drawback to the slidable guide box was that it could bounce up and down on the slides while the bar was moving through the guide box so that the bar was not held rigidly by the guide box as it passed therethrough.
Another prior art installation utilized a stationary trough located immediately upstream of the guide box for guiding the bar into the guide box, but, in this type of installation, the guide box was not readily removable from its operative position so that maintenance and repair were inconvenient.